Summer is a tough season for Pakistanis because it brings an anathema of sorts with it: load shedding. The country saw load shedding of up to 18 hours in cities while many rural areas virtually remained in darkness the other day while it’s still spring season officially. A major chunk of what little we are generating is being used totally free, at very little cost, wasted through problems in the distribution system, or is simply stolen. What remains for public consumption is peanuts compared to the country’s total installed capacity.

7,000MW of energy for a population of 190 million, industrial and business sectors included! The statistics speak for themselves. Reports say that the country’s shortfall in energy demand and supply has shot up to 6,000MW. It will go further up as the summer season hits peak around mid-May through mid-July. Around 700MW goes to the KESC, reducing the national supply by another 10pc. The supply drops to 4,500MW as lines losses, theft and transmission inefficiency cost us up to 25 percent. Exemptions given to hospitals, the VVIPs and the defence sector take away another 1,500MW, leaving the net available electricity to the rest of the consumers at 3,000MW only. How is the general public supposed to manage its electricity needs with only this minuscule supply? The government has not paid any attention to the issue in the past five years, other than some shady deals for rental power projects.

The terrorists in the recent weeks have upped the ante with attacks on power installations. Over the past one week, terrorists attacked four installations, including a 220kv grid station. Four gas pipelines were destroyed over the fortnight, affecting power generation. With Uch Power (550MW), Habibullah coastal power plant (125MW) and Sheikh Manda power plant (25MW) out of order for the past 36 hours after acts of sabotage damaging gas pipelines feeding these plants, the national grid has literally been brought to its knees. Another 700MW went out of the generation tally because of disruption in oil supply to AES Lal Pir and Pak-Gen on Saturday. Tarbela and Mangla also lost 600MW of electricity producing capacity due to less water availability.

Protests have been held in various cities including Lahore, Faisalabad and Hafizabad, and one would wish that protests this time don’t turn out to be as violent as the last year. Making matters even worse is the fact that elections are at hand and if there is no electricity, there could be complications of a number of varieties.

What needs to be done, even if there is a caretaker setup in the country at present, is that generation of power must be given top priority. Mere reshuffling of administration is not going to result in anything concrete. The focus should be on how to increase the generation capacity so as to handle the situation properly, instead of getting it out of hands.

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